Click on the English word to see information and examples of that word in use. Use these sentences to give yourself a feel for how each word can be used, and maybe even to expose yourself to the grammar that you will be learning shortly.

A PDF file neatly presenting these words and extra information can be found here.

Examples:
짐을 그냥 트렁크에 실어요 = Just put/load the suitcases/luggage in the trunk
노동자들이 박스를 트럭에 싣게 했어요 = I made the workers load the boxes onto the truck
내일 이사를 가서 이삿짐을 싣기 위해 차를 빌렸어요 = I am moving tomorrow, so I rented a car so that I can load the moving boxes

Notes: 깨다 doesn’t act on objects. Rather, it is used to indicate that a subject has woken up. For example:

애기가 깼어요 = The baby woke up

It is also common to use the word “잠” to indicate that the person has woken up from sleeping. For example:

애기가 잠이 깼어요 = The baby woke up

You can indicate what woke the person up by attaching ~에 to the thing that caused the person to wake up. For example:

애기가 소리에 잠이 깼어요 = The baby woke up because of/from the noise/sound

You can use the word 깨우다 when a person actively wakes up somebody else. For example:

저는 애기를 깨웠어요 = I woke up the baby

Also note that even though the translation “wake up” is used, 깨다 (and 깨우다) does not mean that the person actually gets up (as in, gets out of bed). Instead, it simply means that the person woke up from sleeping, but it is possible that he or she is still lying down. If you want to indicate that one actually gets out of bed, you can use the word 일어나다.

Common Usages:
잠이 깨다 = to wake up
술이 깨다 = to sober up

Examples:
애기가 깨지 않게 조용히 노크해 주세요 = Knock quietly so that the baby doesn’t wake up
아침에 일어나자마자 밥을 먹고 물을 많이 마시니 술이 깼어요 = Now that I have woken and ate (rice) and drank water right away, I am not drunk/hung-over anymore

In this lesson, you will learn how to say “one makes” or “one lets” a person to do an action. Just like with a lot of other Korean grammatical principles, this one doesn’t make sense at first to English speakers, simply because the construction is so different from English grammar. As always, I will break it down for you step by step. Let’s get started.

To make/To let…: ~게 하다

Before we begin, note that the word “to make” has many meanings in English. In this lesson, we are not talking about the definition of “to make” as it refers to “building” something. Instead, we are talking about the definition of the word “make” in the following sentence:

I make my mom happy

Note here that this definition of “make” has nothing to do with actually building/making an object. Rather, it is about influencing/telling somebody what to do. Here are more examples of this usage in English:

I made him study
I want to make my friend leave
I will make him sleep

Korean people don’t distinguish between “making” a person doing something, and “letting” a person doing something. It sounds weird to an English speaker, but the Korean translations for the above sentences would be the same as the Korean translations for the following sentences:

I let him study
I want to let my friend leave
I will let him sleep

English learners see this grammatical principle (which I haven’t even introduced to you yet) and get hung up on the fact it can mean “to make” or “to let.” How can one thing in Korean translate to two seemingly different things in English?

Just a quick note. We see this same phenomenon many times when we compare English and Korean. You saw something similar when you learned about ~아/어야 하다 (Lesson 46) and how it can be translated to “one must” or “one should.” Remember, these languages are vastly different, and just because something is done in English, doesn’t mean the same principle will apply in Korean.

Let me introduce this grammatical principle to you with one simple example. To create this meaning of “to make” or “to let,” you can attach ~게 하다 to the stem of a word. The subject of the sentence “makes/lets” the object do that action. For example:

I’d like to discuss why the translations of “to make” and/or “to let” are used in this situation. In English, the word “to make” is more related to forcing a person to do an action; whereas “to let” is more related to allowing a person to do an action. In both cases, the subject is doing something (either forcing or allowing) that, in the end, influences/causes the person to do the action.

The Korean usage does not distinguish between “forcing” or “allowing.” It simply indicates that the subject does something (regardless of it was by “forcing” or “allowing”) that causes/influences the rest of the clause to occur. Therefore, a more accurate translation might be:

Therefore, it’s not that “~게 하다” can have two translations – but rather that the meanings of “make” and “let” are very specific – and both of these meanings can be encompassed in the idea that “one causes/influences the action to occur.”

Let’s look at many more examples. I’ll use the word “make” or “let” often depending on the context, but try to remember that the usage of these words is more of an English phenomenon that isn’t distinguished in these Korean sentences.

In the previous two examples, I attached ~아/어 주다 to ~게 하다. In Lesson 41, you learned the purpose and meaning of using ~아/어 주다. Assuming that the action is somehow positive or beneficial for the person being influenced, it is acceptable to attach ~아/어 주다 to the end of ~게 하다. To a relative beginner of Korean grammar (at Lesson 56, you could call yourself that), this might look complicated, but it’s just the meaning of ~아/어 주다 added on top of ~게 하다.

~게 하다 can also be added to adjectives. When used like this, the subject causes/influences the object to “be” the adjective used. For example:

A common adjective that this is used with is 놀라다, which translates to “to be surprised.” By attaching ~게 하다 to 놀라다, you can indicate that “one did something to cause/influence somebody to be surprised.” This can more simply be translated to “one surprised somebody.” For example:

In the sentences so far, you have seen examples where the subject causes/influences another person to do an action (or be an adjective). Often times you might want to create a sentence where the subject “causes/influences” another person to act on another object.

For example, instead of just saying:
I made him study

You might want to say:
I made him study Korean

In these situations, ~이/가 can be attached to the person you are influencing, and ~을/를 can be attached to the object that the person is acting on. For example:

In all of the examples you have seen so far, 하다 is used immediately after ~게. Let’s look at how we use something else other than 하다 after ~게.

.

So that, In Order to, To allow for: ~게

Earlier in the lesson, I introduced the purpose and meaning of using ~게 하다 in a sentence. I explained that ~게 하다 is used when the subject does an action (regardless of it was by “forcing” or “allowing”) that causes/influences the action/adjective to occur.

In the all of the examples you have seen so far, you don’t know specifically what the “action” was that causes/influences the action/adjective to occur. You have seen that 하다 is used in these sentences – but this is because it isn’t implied what is done to cause/influence the action/adjective to occur.

It is possible to place another verb – or better yet, an entire clause after ~게 to indicate what causes/influences the action to occur. Let’s look at a simple example:

The teacher made me look at the board, or
The teacher let me look at the board, or more generally
The teacher did something that caused/influenced me to look at the board

In this example, it isn’t implied what was done to cause/influence/make/let me look at the board. All we know is the teacher did some action. However, I can specify what the teacher did by replacing 하다 with another verb/clause that provides more information. For example: